the same people who were paid to deny smoking causes cancer
Ever wonder why so many people still seem confused about global warming?
The answer appears to be that confusion leads to profit — especially if you're in some parts of the energy business.
One Colorado electric cooperative has openly admitted that it has paid $100,000 to a university academic who prides himself on being a global warming skeptic.
Intermountain Rural Electric Association is heavily invested in power plants that burn coal, one of the chief sources of greenhouse gasses that scientists agree is quickly pushing earth's average temperature to dangerous levels.
Scientists and consumer advocates say the co-op is trying to confuse its clients about the virtually total scientific consensus on the causes of global warming.
That's what global warming denial is all about - money. According to a nine page document obtained by ABC, efforts to curb global warming would 'erode most, if not all, the benefits of coal-fired generation.'
So, rather than look at new ways to generate electricity and compete in new markets, companies would rather hire people to lie about global climate change.
I've made the comparison before - these 'experts' are doing the same thing with global warming that they did with tobacco. In 1993, lobbyist Steven Milloy called and EPA report linking cancer to second hand smoke 'a joke'. When a concurring 1997 study was published by the British Medical Journal, Milloy said, "it remains a joke today."
Today, Milloy is still in the SAME business, with a different product. Milloy runs the ironically named JunkScience.com, where he doles out unhealthy heaping helpings of disinformation. As a paid advocate for ExxonMobil, it's not extremely surprising. He's also a columnist and frequent pundit on FOX News. (More on Milloy at SourceWatch.org.) JunkScience.com is often referred to as a source by global warming 'skeptics'.
I'm not sure what makes morons like Milloy tick. Obviously, he's a whore - he pulls in big bucks from polluters. But is that all it takes for him to trick the public into letting corporations kill people - money? He's also an adjunct scholar at the libertarian Cato Institute - so there's probably some randian free market moonyism going on there as well. Anyone who's spent time with a hardcore objectivist will know what I'm talking about. These guys are basically members of a secular cult
The Union of Concerned Scientists reports that -- surprise, surprise -- ExxonMobil's been on a PR campaign to cast doubt over the human impact on global climate change since 1998.
WASHINGTON, DC, Jan. 3–A new report from the Union of Concerned Scientists offers the most comprehensive documentation to date of how ExxonMobil has adopted the tobacco industry's disinformation tactics, as well as some of the same organizations and personnel, to cloud the scientific understanding of climate change and delay action on the issue. According to the report, ExxonMobil has funneled nearly $16 million between 1998 and 2005 to a network of 43 advocacy organizations that seek to confuse the public on global warming science.
"ExxonMobil has manufactured uncertainty about the human causes of global warming just as tobacco companies denied their product caused lung cancer," said Alden Meyer, the Union of Concerned Scientists' Director of Strategy & Policy. "A modest but effective investment has allowed the oil giant to fuel doubt about global warming to delay government action just as Big Tobacco did for over 40 years."
how to convince people you aren't killing them
